Background

Robert James Smith was born on April 21, 1959, in Lancashire, to James Alexander Smith and Rita Mary Smith. He was the third of four children. When he was three, his family moved to Horley in Surrey.

Education

Robert Smith was educated at St. Francis Primary School. In 1966, his family moved to Crawley and he was educated at St Francis' Junior School, Notre Dame Middle School, and St. Wilfrid's Comprehensive School. He completed his school education by 1977.

Smith and his siblings were encouraged by their parents to pursue their musical talents and Smith began playing the guitar at the age of 12.

Career

Smith's career started at the age of 14 with the high school band The Crawley Goat Band that also included his brother, Richard, sister Janet, and some of his friends as its members.

He formed the band Easy Cure in 1976 along with Laurence Tolhurst, Porl Thompson, and Michael Dempsey with Smith performing the role of one of the songwriters and a singer. In 1978, the band has renamed The Cure with the dismissal of Paul Thompson from the group. The band worked for Chris Parry's recording label, Fiction Records. From 1978 to 1979, the band released the singles "Killing an Arab" and "10:15 Saturday Night." They also released their debut album "Three Imaginary Boys." By this time, he had become the principal writer for most of the songs of The Cure.

The band agreed to work along with Siouxsie and the Banshees’ for Chris Parry's recording label, Fiction Records.

Smith went on a United Kingdom tour along with Steve Severin of Siouxsie and the Banshees, in 1979, for promoting their second album, "Join Hands." In 1980, Michael Dempsey left the band, and Simon Gallup, a bass guitarist, and Matthieu Hartly, a keyboardist joined the group. This was when Robert, along with his band, released their third album, "Seventeen Seconds," with their single, A Forest becoming a hit.

From July 1982 to February 1985, Smith had to shoulder the entire recording process of The Cure. He released the solo album "The Top" in 1984, where Smith played all the instruments by himself except the drums. "Disintegration," the 1989 album released by the band, featured at No. 3 in the United Kingdom music countdown and No. 12 in the United States music countdown, with three of its songs featuring in the Top 30 list in the United Kingdom and Germany. "Wish," the ninth album by The Cure was released in 1992 and featured popular hits High and Friday I’m in Love.

Throughout the new millennium, Smith recorded new albums with The Cure. These include "Bloodflowers" (2000), "The Cure" (2004), and "4:13 Dream" (2008). From 2010 to 2012, he started to perform solo and also collaborated with a number of other artists working on solo covers such as Frank Sinatra’s Witchcraft and Very Good Advice from Alice in Wonderland.

In 2003, Robert Smith worked in collaboration with the band Blink-182 on the track "All of This" off their album Blink-182. In 2004, Blank & Jones remixed "A Forest" featuring Robert Smith on vocals. There is an EP+ Bonus DVD with 4 audio remixes, The music video featuring Robert Smith, and an interview by Blank & Jones with Robert Smith that takes place before the video shoot. That year, he also provided vocals for Junior Jack for the club hit "Da Hype." In November, he joined Placebo onstage at their Wembley arena gig to sing Placebo's "Without You I'm Nothing" and Smith's own "Boys Don't Cry." Robert Smith also co-wrote and supplied vocals for the Tweaker song "Truth Is."

In 2004, Junior Jack also did a remix of the song Da Hype on his album Trust It featuring Robert Smith. In 2005, Robert Smith teamed up with Billy Corgan, the former lead singer of both the Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan, to do a cover of the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" on Corgan's first solo release, TheFutureEmbrace.

Achievements

• 

  Robert Smith is one of the most well-known rock musicians. His band The Cure is one of the most cherished goth bands in rock history. The album "Disintegration" released in 1989 by The Cure reached the No.3 position in the United Kingdom music chart and has sold over three million copies worldwide to date.
  
  In the spring of 1992, the band, The Cure, released the album titled "Wish" that became an instant hit, peaking at the No.1 position on all top United Kingdom music charts and at No.2 on United States Charts.
  
  In 2004, he was presented with the Godlike Genius Award by Tim Burton at the Shockwaves NME Awards for his guest appearance in the film Mighty Boosh.
  
  In 2005, he won Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement in recognition of his songwriting and composition skills.

Works

More photos

• music

  • Three Imaginary Boys 1979
  • Seventeen Seconds 1980
  • Faith 1981
  • Pornography 1982
  • The Top 1984
  • The Head on the Door 1985
  • Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by The Cure 1987
  • Disintegration 1989
  • Wish 1992
  • Wild Mood Swings 1996
  • Bloodflowers 2000
  • The Cure 2004
  • 4:13 Dream 2008

Religion

Smith grew up in a Catholic atmosphere and went to St. Mary's high school in England as a teenager. However, he is not religious, but sometimes he feels that he wishes he was. One example of his desire for belief is in the aptly-titled Faith.

Politics

Robert Smith once quoted, that he is a "liberal kind of guy" and that he feels uncomfortable with the politicized musicians.

Views

Robert Smith is a multi-instrumentalist who can play four and six-string bass guitars, six and twelve-string guitars, double bass, drums, piano, trumpet, violin, and trombone in many combinations. His singing style is manifested with characteristic unsteadiness. As a songwriter, his lyrics are highly poetic and mysterious, and as frequently inscrutable. Smith has stated that they are often the product of some "altered state," such as drugs or sleep.

Quotations: "I've always spent more time with a smile on my face than not, but the thing is, I don't write about it."

"I've never regretted not having children. My mindset in that regard has been constant. I objected to being born, and I refuse to impose life on someone else."

"I'd rather spend my time looking at the sky than listening to Whitney Houston."

"Refusing to grow up is like refusing to accept your limitations. That's why I don't think we'll ever grow up."

"I had no desire to be famous; I just wanted to make the greatest music ever made. I didn't want anyone to know who I was."

"You don't really know a song until you play it live."

"I do a job I really, really love and I kind of have fun with. People think you can't be grown up unless you're moaning about your job."

"Irony is the recourse of the weak-minded wimp, I think. I hate bands that deliver their songs with knowing smiles on their faces, so that if those songs fall flat they can say 'Ah well, we never really meant it anyway.' It's so dishonest."

"I don't want The Cure to fizzle out doing 45-minute shows of greatest hits. That would be awful for our legacy."

Personality

"Just Like Heaven" is reportedly Smith's favorite pop song that The Cure has produced and easily one of the public's most popular in which he details a lost love: "found myself alone alone alone above the raging sea / that stole the only girl I loved / and drowned her deep inside of me."

Physical Characteristics: Robert Smith is known for the heavy makeup in which he adorns himself - unkempt black hair, eyes lined with black liner, and smeared red lipstick - while he appears on stage for a performance.

Robert Smith has a height of 5 feet 10 inches. Additionally, he weighs about 80Kg. His hair color is black and his eye color is green.

Interests

• Writers

  "The Stranger" by Albert Camu

• Music & Bands

  Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, The Beatles

Connections

Smith met Mary Poole in school when he was 14 years old. Smith explains that his class was asked to choose partners for an activity. He mustered the courage to ask Mary and, as he says, got lucky. They have been together since and were married in 1988. The song "Love Song" was written as a wedding present for Mary. They have agreed to remain childless.

Father:

James Alexander Smith

Mother:

Rita Mary

Spouse:

Mary Poole

colleague:

Simon Gallup

colleague:

Roger O'Donnell

colleague:

Jason Cooper

colleague:

Reeves Gabrels

colleague:

Michael Dempsey

References

• Robert Smith - Instagram
• Robert Smith - Twitter